Identifying what matters…
If ever there was essential reading for every teacher and every teacher-educator, the work of Professor John Hattie from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, would be at the top of my reading list.
The clarity and focus of such an extensive, system-wide meta-study that focusses on the EFFECTs of what teachers, schools and education systems DO is very compelling.
Professor Hattie delivered one of the key-note presentations at the 2007 EARLI conference [European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction]
The abstract states:
The session will overview a synthesis of over 600 meta-analyses of effects on achievement, highlighting the major themes that influence student learning. From these themes, the presentation will demonstrate the development of an assessment model of student learning that has been available and extensively used in NZ elementary and high schools over the past 5 years. A particular theme of the assessment model has been methods for helping teachers see and understand student progress, enable them to set targets/high expectations, and provide feedback so that there are more aware of the importance of some of the key competencies that act as enhancers or barriers to learning.
I would highly recommend the work of Professor Hattie to all involved in educational research. I would suggest you start by reading his Inaugural Lecture from August 1999; see the link at the bottom of this page.
In this presentation, Professor Hattie presents three parts to his “story”. These are
- To identify major influences on achievement [ using 700+ meta-analyses ]
- To outline an assessment model based on these influences
- To demonstrate the power and joy of Educational Psychology
